5 Easy Chia Seed Recipes For Fabulous Skin

by Lisa D Liguori

Do you want a simple tool in your diet that can help prevent free radical damage, inflammation, and premature aging of the skin? I thought so.

The Teeny Tiny Powerhouse

If you open my fridge, you will see various jars of seeds; hemp, flax, and my new love, the teeny tiny chia seed.

Sprinkles

Initially, chia seeds intimidated me. You too? I had heard somewhere that you used chia seeds differently than flax or hemp. Flax seeds you grind up and sprinkle on everything you can, or bake with them, or make raw crackers. Hemp seeds you also sprinkle over your food, or make hemp milk, or just eat em by the spoonful. But chia seeds? I just wasn’t sure.

So, I did what anyone would do with a bag of chia seeds in their fridge. I googled it. Wow! Who knew the chia seed, the very same seed we used to sprout on our chia pets in the 60’s (Yes, I had one. Did you?), had such a fan club.

And with good reason!

Nutrient Dense

Chia seeds apparently have:

3 times the anti-oxidant strength of blueberries

5 times the calcium of milk, PLUS, magnesium and boron which aid in the absorption of calcium (key point)

Toss about 2 T chia seeds into your bowl. Add a handful of raw nuts of your choice, a scoop of blueberries, 2 tsp. flax seed, half of a sliced banana, cinnamon and fresh nut milk of choice. Let stand for about 5 minutes to thicken up and enjoy. Thank you EcoDiva for the inspiration.

1 c non-dairy milk such as soy, or almond, 1 t vanilla, 2 t raw cocoa powder, sweetener of choice – to taste, 3 T chia seeds, 1/2 to 1 C berries of choice (or other fruit). 1. Place milk, vanilla, cocoa and sweetener of choice (I still love a good quality agave) in the blender. Blend well. 2. Pour milk mixture into a bowl and add chia seeds. 3. Mix well and stir every 15 minutes or so. It will take about an hour for it to thicken and absorb the liquid. 4. Refrigerate and add fruit just before serving. Thank you FatFreeVeganKitchen!

I pretty much sprinkle chia, hemp or ground flax seeds on everything and everything to ensure I get my healthy fats, and essential fatty acids that are crucial to good health, and fabulous skin.

Have you tried chia seeds yet? Do you have a good recipe or suggestion as to how to use them? Do share!

Lisa D. Liguori, Founder of StyleEssentials.com

Lisa D Liguori is the founder of Style Essentials, a green healthy-beauty marketplace, featuring mineral makeup, botanically based organic skincare, and even a bit of handcrafted jewelry, all with a serious personal touch.

I was talking to a friend the other day. Like most of us she has way more problems in her life than she’d like to have, frankly more than her share. But, who is to say what a fair share is? What may be devastating to one person may be a roll in the hay to another. I do not welcome upheaval in my life but if I have learned anything I’ve learned that the hardships I have faced have made me a better person and my life far richer than I imagine it might have been otherwise.

Most of my life I fought these hardships. I hated the way I felt and worked really, really hard at not feeling that way. I worked hard on myself to fix me; fix my attitude, my unhealthy thought patterns, my choices, my appearance, my interactions with people and the world, etc. I looked to therapists, medication, careers, a man, religion and anything else I could think of to help me find the inner peace I so desperately sought.

I don’t know whether it was age, chronic failure to achieve this peace of mind, hormones or just dumb luck but at some point in recent years I’ve grown into a profound awareness of how doomed to failure such an approach is, and always will be. We are taught from the day we are born to achieve, to improve, to work hard at life. The basic premise of this attitude is that we need fixing and lots of it! Apparently we don’t arrive on this earth in very good form! We must kneel at the altar of some higher power and ask for forgiveness as soon as we can walk and then hobble along to the finish line using all the external support we can get!

Hog wash! (Choice of words is evidence of my grandfather’s influence on me. ) We were perfect when we were born, always were and always will be. We are perfectly human. What we have needed, and most of us still need, is to not work harder at changing ourselves, but to be more Zen-like, and go with the flow, trusting ourselves and our inner guide. “Let it Be”…maybe that’s why John Lennon’s song resonates so deeply with us. Somewhere in the dark recesses of our souls, we know the truth of these simple three words.

We have everything we need right inside of ourselves. Everything! If we didn’t pick up a book, kneel at an altar, or bow before the gods of our cultural mandates, we would find all the resources necessary to arrive at our very own version of inner peace, in the human sense of the word. In fact, I have begun to believe that as children we knew inner peace (again in the human sense of the word). It was just taken away from us by the world we encountered.

So, the question remains, did I have to live fifty something years to come to this place in my life or is it something that is instinctual? I knew these things when I was fifteen, probably younger but I was drawn away from them over and over again. It seems I did not trust the simplicity of the answers I held. I did not trust myself…I did not trust the truth that lived in me. I would like to believe that in a differently shaped culture, the odds of getting here sooner and locking in deeper are indeed possible.

I think we pretty much all are in agreement by the time we reach fifty and sixty: Life is not a simple thing! In fact, in many ways, it just becomes more complex the older we get. The good news is that we now have a rich arsenal of experience upon which to draw as we face each new challenge. We are better equipped to find the meaning and purpose in our day-to-day existence and we finally have the mental and emotional time and freedom to do so.

This chapter in our lives is a work in progress, just like every chapter that has gone before. We think about things, struggle with things, grow and change, evaluate and discard and it’s all good. Here are a few of the things I’ve been thinking about. I always enjoy your thoughts and value your feedback. Sharing the journey makes it richer for all of us.

We have all been wounded. Many of us bear the deep scars of a less than perfect childhood. Perhaps our parents didn’t, or couldn’t love us the way we needed to be loved, alas, the way all children deserve to be loved. Or, maybe another person or experience left a mark on our psyche or heart so painful that we put in place cleverly devised layers of protection to keep us safe from future harm.

Self-protection has its benefits, but it also has its dangers. The longer we live and the more we have loved and lost, the more likely we are to be weighed down by our own cleverness. We may even feel smug about our ability to “carry on” in spite of life’s eventualities, or to turn the other cheek with increasing ease. We may, in fact, simply be numb.

If you look into the face of an innocent child who was loved into awakening, you will see the wide-eyed innocence of easy trust, acceptance and love…a love that flows freely without boundaries or limitations or expectations. That once was us.

We may never be able to go back to the point of perfect innocence, but if we dare, we can choose to stare down our fears, choose to open our hearts and choose to love again. We can decide to no longer let the past control our willingness to open our hearts today. We have surely reached the point in our lives where we can trust our ability to survive hurt and loss. We have done it many times before. We may know the pain that open, trusting, unsuspecting love can bring, but we also know its deep abiding joy and life-giving power as well.

We owe it to ourselves and to those who come into our lives today to keep taking the risk to love and be loved. It is the only real way to know the fullness of life. After all, as the song says, “it is the heart afraid of breaking, that never learns to dance”.

“The Rose”

Some say love, it is a river
that drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor
that leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say love, it is a hunger,
an endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower,
and you its only seed.

It’s the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance.
It’s the dream afraid of waking
that never takes the chance.
It’s the one who won’t be taken,
who cannot seem to give,
and the soul afraid of dyin’
that never learns to live.

When the night has been too lonely
and the road has been to long,
and you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong,
just remember in the winter
far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed that with the sun’s love
in the spring becomes the rose.

“My flame burns brightly. I live in integrity with myself and my God. I am not the sum of what you think of me.

I am who I was created to be and work daily to continue to be more and more of that wonderful creation called me.”

Affirmation by Jill Davis

Living from our heart seems to be a difficult thing for most of us. Our pure, honest voice, lost or muffled in infancy, has been replaced with a façade cobbled together to create someone who is acceptable to the world. We like to think the face we present to the world is real, but it rarely is. From the time we take our first breath we modify our behavior, our thoughts, and our reactions in an attempt to please and appease our care providers. We need them to stay alive and healthy, at least initially. Our natural survival instinct drives us to gain the attentions of those responsible for our care.

The lucky among us had care givers who not only recognized but were able to reflect to us the unique gifts and individual character traits with which we were born; care providers who fostered, nurtured and created a safe environment within which we could bloom and flourish and become ourselves. Real. Honest. Fearless.

Most of us were not so lucky. To one degree or another, those charged with our care hammered away at our uniqueness attempting to diminish traits not to their liking. They could not see or ignored important gifts that make us who we truly are. In the process, we understandably lost sight of where we began, and forgotten who we truly are. What remains is a pseudo-self that we present to the world and believe to be who in fact we are. We wonder why we feel out of step with ourselves.

Underneath the mask, the real, true and honest us still exists. Waiting. Ready. Willing to be freed, to live and breathe and find expression. It is our job, particularly as we age, to remove the mask we may have created to survive, piece by piece, bit by bit and to rediscover our birthright.

Too often we simply create a new mask to replace the old one, thinking that it will cure our dis-ease. We whittle away at our bodies, using diets, exercise, and plastic surgery to create a more perfect image of ourselves. We launch off on new careers, leave our spouses or significant others, sell our home and take to the road in search of better life, a better way, a better us. We look outward for the answers and find a temporary fix.

If we are not careful we can go on this way until our days on this earth are done and never have sung our song, for we are looking in the wrong place to find our truth. Our truth lies within us, and will always be found in the recognition and acceptance of who we are inside of ourselves, in our souls. It is only when we find that place that we can begin to live in integrity with ourselves, with our God and with the world. Then, we will know the meaning of our lives. The, we will know peace.

Words float in my head, unbidden, wandering trying to go somewhere. Like me. Phrases lurk in the shadows looking for a home, a purpose, a connection to something, somewhere. Like me. Beauty rests somewhere unfamiliar, somewhere in yet to be charted territory. Peace and tranquility. Joy. Meaning. Purpose.

The truths of life are the same, from one to another. The real truth crosses all boundaries of time, space, creed, nationality, age and utters its whisper softly and gently to all who listen. I raise my head from a pillow of tears just long enough to look into the eyes of truth and then turn away. Frightened of what, I do not know.

Our truth connects to a bigger whole should we be fortunate enough to find it. When removing the gauze of indifference, or fear, from our eyes we may look upon the face of God…of truth…of that which gives life and takes it when it is ready. Truth is etched upon the hearts of women throughout history, before, during, now, and future times. A string runs through our lives connecting one to another drawing us in, weaving us carefully into a patchwork quilt that is life. There is no beginning, no end, only now and eternity.

Our lives are our own and yet they are not. Our lives belong to the universe, to the whole, to the patchwork quilt. What we give of our truth will find its way into the pattern, into the beautiful, kaleidoscopic tapestry of eternity, bright with colors, shapes, sounds and above all else, love. What we love will be our legacy. How we love will be our truth.

Its written across the pages of history that as mere mortals we are called to speak the truth and to love. They cannot be divided. One without the other is incomplete. Find your truth and live it in love and your legacy will unfold bit by bit to find its place in the tapestry of eternity.